Page 152 - A Little Life: A Novel

despite himself, began to follow him, walking toward the greenhouse he
knew so well with the beginnings of an unfamiliar eagerness, as if he had
never seen it before.

As an adult, he became obsessed in spells with trying to identify the
exact moment in which things had started going so wrong, as if he could
freeze it, preserve it in agar, hold it up and teach it before a class: This is
when it happened. This is where it started. He’d think: Was it when I stole
the crackers? Was it when I ruined Luke’s daffodils? Was it when I had my
first tantrum? And, more impossibly, was it when I did whatever I did that
made her leave me behind that drugstore? And what had that been?

But really, he would know: it was when he walked into the greenhouse
that afternoon. It was when he allowed himself to be escorted in, when he
gave up everything to follow Brother Luke. That had been the moment.
And after that, it had never been right again.

There are five more steps and then he is at their front door, where he
can’t fit the key into the lock because his hands are shaking, and he curses,
nearly dropping it. And then he is in the apartment, and there are only

fifteen steps from the front door to his bed, but he still has to stop halfway
and bring himself down slowly to the ground, and pull himself the final feet
to his room on his elbows. For a while he lies there, everything shifting
around him, until he is strong enough to pull the blanket down over him. He
will lie there until the sun leaves the sky and the apartment grows dark, and
then, finally, he will hoist himself onto his bed with his arms, where he will
fall asleep without eating or washing his face or changing, his teeth

clacking against themselves from the pain. He will be alone, because
Willem will go out with his girlfriend after the show, and by the time he
gets home, it will be very late.
When he wakes, it will be very early, and he will feel better, but his
wound will have wept during the night, and pus will have soaked through
the gauze he had applied on Sunday morning before he left for his walk, his

disastrous walk, and his pants will be stuck to his skin with its ooze. He will
send a message to Andy, and then leave another with his exchange, and then
he will shower, carefully removing the bandage, which will bring scraps of
rotten flesh and clots of blackened mucus-thick blood with it. He will pant
and gasp to keep from shouting. He will remember the conversation he had